Jorge's Guide to the Ultimate Silverblue Desktop

EXTREME. In this video I go over my favorite setup for Fedora Silverblue.
If you want this all scripted and ready to go: ublue.it/
Flatpaks I recommend on install: github.com/castrojo/ublue/blo...
Get your cube on: extensions.gnome.org/extensio...
Want to do more research on systems like this? Here's a huge list: castrojo.github.io/awesome-im... (Send a PR if you find something to add!)
00:00 Intro
01:24 Ublue (ublue.it)
02:18 System Updates and Rebooting
04:47 rpm-ostree layering
08:11 Flatpak Updates and Fedora Flatpaks (flatpak.org/setup/Fedora)
11:34 Extension Manager
13:11 Flatline (github.com/CleoMenezesJr/flat...)
13:48 Distrobox
17:19 Flatseal
Follow me on / castrojo
Blog: ypsidanger.com

[@unclefester9113]

Jorge Castro's UBlue it - Desktop, is my favorite desktop. Period.

[@wew8820]

brilliant explanation and intro - just had F38 update break my docker/devcontainers setup so going to try to do it properly on silverblue now

[@JuniorMenezes7]

Glad to see Flatline was mentioned.

[@nicdm81]

Thanks for this video! It helped me fine-tune my Silverblue install 🙂

[@princesaliya4394]

I have windows installed on my c drive so can I make a new partition on drive and install silverblue in it??

[@BashirAbba]

Great video. You convinced me to make the switch to Silverblue, even though I'm a relative newbie to Linux. I'll be go through a lot more of the documentation next. Keep up the good work.

[@romulino]

Why?

[@experimental0000]

It's not that we don't want to update the system, it's that we don't want to be locked out of doing anything in the OS unless it gets a reboot to apply the update (which is what Windows does, it forces you to reboot and nags until you do and keeps limiting or just flatly locks you down until the reboot is done. or it'll just do a yolo reboot and you lose anything unsaved). I let fedora check and update daily and I'll reboot or just power down when I'm done using it. Unless it's a server I don't feel the need for a normal workstation or generalized pc to be on 24/7. saves on the power bill too.

[@colbyboucher6391]

I've never, not once, had Windows "lock anything down" before an update, what?

[@jimmyneutron129]

generally i just reboot it (before silverblue) when a new kernel or system updates arrives

[@jesse7631]

What is funny is that I have my Fedora build also designed to look like Ubuntu. I like the desktop layout, so I have kept it. Of course, I also use Ulauncher.

[@unokometanti8922]

Super cool stuff. Since I have only an Apple Silicon Mac right now, I've tried my fortune with a Fedora Silverblue for ARM VM. Expectedly, it didn't go very well (too many things not intended for such arch). But as soon as I put my hands on some x86 hw (or a cloud VM maybe?) I'll definitely give it another spin....as I'm a believer....THIS is the way. Thanks Jorge!

[@JorgeCastro]

Once all that Asahi enablement makes it ways to other distros you'll hopefully be good to go, thanks for leaving feedback!

[@unokometanti8922]

@@JorgeCastro Finally got my hands on my 3-years old AMD PC.....installed Garuda on it with BTRFS and snapper....then started playing with Flatpaks, then Podman, then Distrobox, then Atom....and voilà....the magic started....Now planning to spin up a VM with MicroOS or Fedora Silverblue to replicate the model and get close and personal with ostree and transactional-update. I'm 100% a believer now...one of my goals is to manage BTRFS snapshot backups on BorgBackup via snapborg and test the full cycle (simulate a host failure with rebuild from cloud-saved snapshot...). Let's see.....

[@udekmp868]

I think this video just convinced me to switch to Fedora Silverblue on my desktop. I already use mostly flatpak applications for my Arch Linux setup anyways, so I think Silverblue wouldn't be too bad of a switch. I already use Silverblue on my laptop, but there was a lot of stuff covered in this video that I didn't know about, so thank you for showing your setup to give me a better understanding of the distro. It's amazing that Silverblue in its current state can replace my current setup with it and lose nothing in exchange for a more reliable daily driver. By the way, is the Flathub shortcut pinned on your panel just a browser shortcut to Flathub?

[@JorgeCastro]

That''s a web shortcut to "beta.flathub.org" so I can use it like it's an app store.

[@desmondsparrs]

Ive been test running Fedora Kinoite a couple of times last week or so on a spare SSD of mine. I made a promise to myself to move to something stable and reliable, and the immutability part of Silverblue/Kinoite(which is what I use now). and my Arch install broke a 3rd time after reviving it somehow within a 1-2 weeks, so I chose to replace all Arch with Kinoite, and so i will just have to learn things now. And plan whenever i layer packages in and do upgrades and so on. Toolbox tried it once, not sure of anything rn. I just need a system i cant without effort bork completely like i always do sooner or later. Looking forward to more Linux gains!

[@TechnologyGeek862]

You've come far from this video 😁

[@L5biszz]

ur good boy. 👍

[@philippeandreadoviakueamba1265]

Thanks for the video! I'm switching to Silverblue right now and there are some things I couldn't figure out. How do you have different terminal themes for each distrobox and how do you add gnome extensions to rpm-ostree?

[@JorgeCastro]

You need to create a new profile for each box, and in each profile you can edit the colors, fonts, etc. Layering gnome-extensions is just installing the package like normal fedora: rpm-ostree install gnome-shell-extension-whatever and then a reboot. Though for most people it's probably easier to install this app from flathub: flathub.org/apps/details/com.mattjakeman.ExtensionManager and it'll do everything for you

great video, 2:22 didn't quite catch it, does your config removes the forced reboot to apply updates? and just updates and then when you reboot your on the new image? could be quite nice for user experience to have natural reboots or shutdowns to load new image.

[@JorgeCastro]

Yeah I always just have my updates stage so that they apply when I naturally reboot the machine.

[@thenikogril]

I am considering switching to Fedora Silverblue, and I agree with the advantages you lay out in your videos. I love the idea of containerizing development environments for different projects, to keep the dependencies completely separated from the host system, and also each other. I have just one question, as I am not all that familiar with Podman or Toolbox / Distrobox yet - how would you approach using Docker within a Silverblue container, for e.g. running dockerized databases during app development?

[@JorgeCastro]

This is a complicated topic currently because IDEs aren't really adapting to the zero-trust model as fast as they could be. There are people connecting vscode to distroboxes and doing it that way. I am currently just adding vscode to my base image and exploring having a devcontainer setup: github.com/devcontainers github.com/orgs/ublue-os/discussions/155 will have more info!

[@thenikogril]

@@JorgeCastro Do you maybe have a dedicated video explaining your devcontainers setup? Maybe an idea for the future :)

[@JorgeCastro]

Yeah we'll be making videos of the devcontainer setup, in the meantime check this out: github.com/orgs/ublue-os/discussions/155

[@johnsnyder4379]

How do you install Distrobox? I can't find a way to layer it over a Silverblue image, but I don't think it should be installed into a Fedora Toolbox. I'd really appreciate your detailing how to add Distrobox to a Fedora 36 Silverblue installation!

[@JorgeCastro]

`rpm-ostree install distrobox` will pull it in.

[@johnsnyder4379]

@@JorgeCastro Thank you!

[@billyblackburn864]

how do you get the dock always present and on the left? my dock only appears when I hit Super

[@JorgeCastro]

Right click on the little 3x3 grid and then it's in the settings.

[@ahmet05ac]

i tried installing ms teams .deb version inside ubuntu distrobox. just for fun and to see if i will be able to install an application that is only released for ubuntu. i am not saying ms teams is available only on ubuntu. but there might be some programs that is not available in other distributions. anyway. it gives a systemd error. any help on this? also I am curious about the integration level. do programs have access to my gpu for example??

[@JorgeCastro]

It installs fine for me but silently crashes when I try to run the binary. Other stuff I've tried has worked so not sure what's going on there. GPU stuff should work fine for apps I've tried but not sure if steam would work this way.

[@ahmet05ac]

@@JorgeCastro thanks for the answer. one more question. can we make the desktop environment as the same as ubuntu? ubuntu's shell is a bit different. dark theme of the top notification panel is darker than the default gnome and top bar is a bit thinner too. can we implement this? not asking the accent color :) it will be available in the future i believe

[@WilliamThresher]

Are you using OBS on Silverblue? How did you handle v4l2loopback for the virtual camera?

[@JorgeCastro]

I include the module in projectbluefin.io so the obs flatpak works out of the box

[@404JP]

where do I get that background, just really cool, I can actually see a face there, right side of a face (hint :)

[@JorgeCastro]

It is a picture of the Lagoon Nebula by Charles Bonafilia: www.astrobin.com/users/@_ethereal_astro/

[@404JP]

@@JorgeCastro Thank you!

[@JasonCarlile]

Jorge, are you still using Fedora Silverblue as a daily driver? Thanks

[@JorgeCastro]

Yes! Except instead of doing it by hand I'm doing it for you! projectbluefin.io

[@MrWilliams001i]

There is one application I like to use but it is a appimage. Should I be avoiding these in silverblue?

[@JorgeCastro]

appimages work just fine on it, I tend to avoid them since I prefer to have all my updates and stuff done centrally, however they're great for "This thing is new and I just want to try it on the spot". Removing them leaves the host clean so whatever works for you!

[@alexstone691]

One caveat, appimages sometimes do not work inside toolbox, i do not why but fontforge appimage fails with some fuse problem

[@JahidulIslam]

@@alexstone691 You can run appimage right in the host if all are good. I use few appimage on Silverblue host.

[@jesusgil3961]

How do you layer vs code?

[@JorgeCastro]

Toss the repo file they give you in /etc/yum.repos.d/ and then you can rpm-ostree install it.

[@jesusgil3961]

@@JorgeCastro makes sense, thank you!

[@123fourU]

@@JorgeCastro Sorry but what is toss in this context?

[@androth1502]

is it a pain to install other WM or TWMs?

[@JorgeCastro]

It doesn't really work that way since I made this video, what you do now is rebase to an image that has the DE/WM you want, which is what we're now doing here: ublue.it/images/ If you're into tiling window managers we're working on sericea builds, which is a sway build: github.com/ublue-os/main and we have one with nvidia drivers built in too.

[@androth1502]

@@JorgeCastro this looks great. i think silverblue is the way i ultimately want my OS to behave, with me in full control of what goes where and when it updates with working containers that i can throw away when they get too messy without having to move my data. the only reason i haven't switched to it is because of nvidia installation issues that have melted my brain trying to figure out. with the work you're doing here, i will start migrating back into it.

[@user-hh4br5tk5p]

I have been using traditional linux distro for 15 years and they are not awful by design. You may like compostable distros more, but dont shit on the old school model.

[@colbyboucher6391]

...Do people not turn their computers off?

[@alexstone691]

I used to only have a slow hdd so i always leave my pc on sleep mostly cause hibernation is unpredictable

[@claycassin8437]

Can I have a traditional bottom taskbar, with everything on it and nothing at the top? I cannot find out this information anywhere. What I have seen in your video and elsewhere is not what I want. I was told Silverblue would be one of the easiest to use coming from Windows, but if the layout isn't what I am used to, it is an absolute no go. I do hope a normal desktop is immediately available upon installation- Please let me know, as that will determine whether I even try this. You are actually the last chance- If I don't get a response from you, I will try other distros instead. I have heard good things about Open SUSE. I do know that Windows 10 will be my last version of that OS(I am using a stripped version), as Windows 11's telemetry has reached the level of being unacceptable. I still have two years to figure this out.

[@JorgeCastro]

There's an extensions called dash-to-panel that you can install that should give you an older windows experience: extensions.gnome.org/extension/1160/dash-to-panel/

[@claycassin8437]

@@JorgeCastro I just looked at that. It lost me in the second sentence. A "dash"? Whut? This is exactly the problem I am talking about. I need computer language I actually comprehend. Is that the "start" icon? The system icons like network and clock? I saw that it did not mean application icons...I understood just that much. Trying to read the webpage,, I also gleaned onto the nugget that the KDE desktop already has a taskbar like that, so they may have set me on course. As a person who has hand built computers for more than 25 years, I feel really stupid. It sucks.Thanks for the help, though. You are a good person, no matter what anyone says.

[@JorgeCastro]

Yeah it sounds like you want Kinoite (KDE)!

[@claycassin8437]

@@JorgeCastro Thank you for answering me- I just looked that up, and it sounds like what I am wanting. Unfortunately, Microsoft trained me to only feel comfortable with a GUI a certain way...and it is a HARD habit to break. I really appreciate your help, man. Subscribed!

[@Ghfvhvfg]

Fedora flatpaks are greate i……………..